Darkest Before the Dawn
by techybae
Summary: She'd earned a rest, hadn't she? Her heavy lids closed for what Sarah Shepard was certain was the last time, and, in that brief moment, she welcomed it. 'Come back to me."
1. Chapter 1

**Post-War AU, the central alteration being that the** _ **Normandy**_ **simply never left the Sol system...** **oh, and also it's Fem!Shep/Tali, deal with it, it's what's happening. Tali is my favorite LI but I detest playing M!Shep, so... this** **.** **S** **tory picks up following the destroy ending as presented in the Extended Cut DLC.** **Mass Effect and canonical characters are the property of EA Games and BioWare.** **  
/Elin**

* * *

Space really was beautiful, she mused feverishly as she stared out into the void, the broken and mangled part of the citadel where she found herself half immersed in rubble was open to space yet something was clearly keeping the cold vacuum at bay; for now. She'd been born in space, it seemed only fitting she would die there as well, she had before after all, to join Dad there amongst the stars, and probably Mum now as well. She could hear nothing but her own heartbeat, a slow rhythm in her ears, getting slower. It wasn't like last time, no panic and fear as she drifted away, no suit that pumped her full of stims to make sure she'd remain conscious and aware of every second. This was ok, wasn't it? 

_**'**_ _ _ **God**__ _ **... it feels like it's been years since I**_ _ _ **just**__ _ **...**_ _ _ **sat down**__ _ **.**_ _ **'**_

Her eyelids felt so heavy, and she was tired, so very tired. Surely fighting to the death, only to come back to fight again; and judging by the Reaper corpses now drifting idly by outside the jagged hole in the Citadel, win, was enough for anyone? She'd a rest, hadn't she? Her heavy lids closed for what Sarah Shepard was certain was the last time, and, in that brief moment, she welcomed it.

 _ **'Come back to me."**_

The words felt as if they'd been spoken aloud rather than in her mind, a broken, desperate pleading that had broken her heart the first time, and now sent a wrenching through her heart that made her physically jolt. Her eyes fluttered open again and she shook the fog from her mind and the world came crashing back with the sounds of shifting rubble, fires, distant alerts and the acrid smell of electrical fires and blood filled her nostrils. Images of Tali's beautiful face flashed through her mind, velvety purple skin, the cutest button nose she'd ever seen, those impossible large eyes that shone in silver like twin moons which held so much love for her. A raged sob rent through her mangled chest and she inhaled sharply, fire spread throughout her body and she screamed out in agony, a dry hoarse sound that she couldn't believe was coming from her.

 _ **'**_ _ **...**_ _ **I want more time...**_ _ **"**_

With great effort, she managed to slow her breathing. She had to survive, she knew that now. She couldn't die, she couldn't do that to her, not again. She'd told Tali to go, to build a home, to be happy. But how often had Tali told her that, for her, home was where Sarah was, happiness was where _they_ were, together?

Groaning, she pushed herself off the, well "floor" was a poor description of it, the flat slab of debris her back was pinned against. She winced as a new wave of sharp pain tore through her body. When she managed to get to what resembled, at least somewhat, a sitting position, she as able to survey her surroundings for the first time, but making any guess as to her location was impossible. Though from the arch of the large chamber she'd guess somewhere on the central ring. Looking down on her own body, she noticed she was buried to her pelvis in debris. Most of it seemed to be fairly small, but a large beam lay square over where she knew her legs must be.

With determination and a stubbornness matched by few, she set out clearing the rubble from her body. She couldn't tell how long it took, it could have been hours or even days, but eventually she'd chipped away at the pile until only the thick beam and her legs remained on the flat slab. As she'd feared, her legs were pinned, and she could literally see one of them looked... flattened, under the weight. _'Explains why I can't feel them, I guess.'_ she thought despondently.

No solutions came to her at first, her head pounded both from what was likely a severe concussion, blood loss and good old dehydration. _' Just sitting here bleeding on the damn thing won't solve anything...'  
_ Then, it came to her. The slab. She wasn't sitting on the actual floor, she was perched on a slab. She couldn't tell from the top how thick it was, but clearly since it had fallen down here, it was breakable. If she could break the slab, it should free offer a split second of movement to get free; until she got crushed even worse that it.

Still, there was no way to move the beam. Just as she started looking around for a tool of some kind, a rock to smash at the slab or at least something harder than her bare fists, the problem was solved for her. A massive groaning sound of tortured metal and stone came from above her, she whipped her head up, neck screaming in protest, and her eyes widened. What was left of the ceiling swayed, groaned, and finally crumbled. A rain of metal and mortar fell over her, raising her aching arms over her head, she hunkered down as best she could. She winced as mall pieces slammed into her, and she could hear much larger debris falling all around. Then, with a mighty _thud_ right beside her that made her cry out in alarm. To her amazement, however, she felt herself shift downwards. A large piece had fallen on the slab and, while it hadn't cracked, it had shifted slightly down. The beam across her legs, however, remained in place. With great effort, she could start to wiggle herself free.

Several hours later, an exhausted Sarah Shepard slid off of the slab and crashed painfully onto the floor. Her legs were, to put it mildly, broken. More pulverized really. And now that they were free from under the weight of the beam, feeling had returned to them. This was, as it turned out, not a good thing under the circumstances. Steeling herself, Sarah began dragging herself away towards one of the arching sides, figuring there would be some kind of access points somewhere.

After a while, she started seeing bodies. A lot of them. Even now, with all she had seen throughout her career and this war in particular, the smell of death and decay still turned her stomach. She vaguely remembered seeing piles of mostly human corpses when she first arrived at the citadel, but these corpses while predominantly. human also held some aliens, and some were dressed in what she was certain were bloodied C-SEC uniforms. This, at least, confirmed for her she was out of the keep tunnels where she'd first arrived, and for the first time since waking up she felt somewhat optimistic. She must be close to the Presidium, and the Presidium meant people. Or at least it used to. Steeling herself, she hefted herself forward again, and again, and again. There was was only one thing on her mind, keeping her promise, getting back to Tali. _'Build a home.'_

* * *

"What a god damn mess." Commander Armando Bailey said, as he looked out over what had once been them focal point of the Citadel, and indeed, galactic civilization as a whole. The Presidium was in ruins, bodies littered the entire space and instead of the greenery, water and sky, the place now had a reddish tint to it from the soot, ash and fires still burning coupled with what few emergency lights that were still functioning.

"Sure is" the flanged voice of his second in command, Veria Thanius, answered. "It's pretty shocking, to be honest. Wasn't this bad even after Sovreign's attack, reminds me of it but it's... worse."

Bailey nodded. Over his years at C-SEC, he'd gotten pretty good at discerning Turian subvocals even through the translators, and the Turian womans fairly vibrated with remorse and sadness. He could relate. They'd done their best, they'd done well all things considered. But all in all, he and his officers had managed to save just short of 500,000 of the Citadels over 13 million strong population in their reinforced shelters and ad-hoc bunkers. It had been more, but one after the other they had fallen to the Reaper ground forces. And, if he was honest with himself, had the fighting gone on much longer, they would all have perished. It had been a matter of hours, not days.

The worst blow had come when Tayseri ward had, effectively, blown loose and drifted off during the final battle. He didn't even want to think of how many people had died in that moment, when in a split second, the mass effect fields must have gone down and opened the entire ward to vacuum. The only comfort was that, as things went, it was a gentler fate than falling into the hands of the Reapers.

The day following the battle had been spent linking up with the other remaining shelters and attempting to establish contact with the fleer hovering outside. The latter they'd manage fairly quickly, as the fleet was adamant to find out what had happened to the Citadel and, more importantly, if anyone was left alive on board. The had been directed to sweep the central ring to make sure it was clear and that docking, or at least the repairs needed to make docking possible, could begin. They'd just broken through the rubble and barricades half an hour earlier and were now planning the sweep of the Presidium and docking ring. They'd come in through the Zakera ward access shaft, close to where the embassies had once been and Bailey could see the tall spire of the Council chambers still standing, tho the fate of the chamber itself was unknown, and he couldn't make anything out through the smoke drifting through the giant torus.

"So, how you figure we do this? Grids?" he asked

Valeria pondered for a moment before nodding "Yeah, we'll probably need to conduct repairs on the ground level anyway before moving on to the docks, so best be thorough." she paused briefly and lowered her voice respectfully "We'll need to deal with... the bodies, too, somehow."

Bailey set his jaw and turned around to face his people. A group of people comprising about 200 individuals, made up largely of C-SEC officers and what was left of the newly minted Citadel Militia, along with a few civilians with military, law enforcement or medical experience that had found themselves drafter or volunteered in the chaos. "Right you lot" he called "We've a lot of station to sift through and not a lot of time to do it. The fleet command wants the Presidium and the docking rings cleared ASAP. I don't need to tell you that there are a lot of injured soldiers and sailors out there needing to get off their ships so lets snap to it."

There was a murmur of assent and he and Veria began designating search parties and assigning search grids. He deliberately kept a contingent of about 50 people back, however. A group of people he knew had combat experience and, above all, field medical expertise.

"As for you" he said, addressing the group "I have a special task... I won't lie, it's not pretty and I won't make it an order, but we need someone to deal with the casualties." He paused, looking them each in the eye in turn.

When they all said nothing, but slightly more hardened of resolve, he continued "Now, obviously we don't have facilities to deal with them yet, but we need them away from the docking ring access and other areas where we need to make emergency repairs."

Nods all around "It's a long shot, but I also need you to check for life signs, if anyone in here managed to not snuff it, we don't want to miss them. Other than that, try to give them some dignity, we'll put them according to species or by identifiable uniforms to make identification easier later when their relevant governments and organizations, hopefully, show up."

With that, he dismissed them and he and Veria set out to join the search parties as well. She hefted her rifle and came up to him "Hell of a day, huh?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied "hell of a day."

* * *

The Citadel was, Sarah decided as she dragged herself forward, entirely too big. The wards were one thing, but this, there had to be wildernesses on Earth more densely populated than the Presidium. Still, the destruction was less severe now. It was still pretty damn bad, but she actually started to recognize some features now. She appeared to be somewhere higher up in the ring, not at the very bottom or even some secret sublevel as she'd first suspected. She spotted the central torus through gaps in the walls and rubble now and then, but had yet to find a way through. It was, she decided, her best chance. Any search parties would have to move through there, and even if everyone on the Citadel were dead the ships of the fleet would want to use the ring for docking. And she was sure now that they'd won, she'd seen tugs towing reaper corpses when she glanced the space outside the station, and even an Alliance cruiser, heavily damaged but sailing calmly and unmolested through the void.

She came upon a small mound of rubble on what seemed to be a large gash in the side of a balcony overlooking the torus. She heaved herself up. Just as she was going over the summit however, she caught sight of what looked like flashlights and, to her amazement, what sounded like voices. This distraction made her unthinking of where she was putting her hands, and she put the weight of her upper body on a loose piece of debris. As if in slow motion, she felt the world tilt, and her empty stomach lodged itself in her throat. She slid down a short slope of debris and then, she fell. She hit the ground below with a low _thud_ that belied the wave of white hot pain shot through her body. The impact pushed all the air from her lungs, and a wet cough of blood shot from her mouth. She tried to refill her lungs, but found that she couldn't, her vision that had gone bright white as she hit the ground, was now narrowing, blackness creeping in at the edges. Her heart beat laboriously in her hears, even as she heard shouting all around her. It seemed to be growing distant though. Did someone shout her name? No, it couldn't be...

 _ **'Come back to me."**_

Sarah's last thought before the darkness claimed her at last was _'I'm sorry.'_

* * *

It had been slow going. So far, not a single survivor had been found. Not that he'd expected to find any. The Reapers only took prisoners if they needed raw materials, and it seemed that on the Citadel they hadn't bothered. Bailey supposed he should thank the gods for small mercies. The sweep had gone well though, all things considered. The piles of bodies were now neat, dignified rows, and the technicians and engineers among the stations survivors had been called in to start work in the airlocks and lifts to gain them access to the upper floors and lower and upper docking areas.

He was with a group doing a final sweep of one of the outlying areas they'd designated as accessible when he heard it. A scraping sounds, from above, gravel falling along the wall and then, a body slammed into the ground 100 meters away.

Everyone stood motionless for a moment, thinking some debris had come loose and expecting, understandably so, more to come tumblign down from the upper levels. But then they heard something else, a wet cough, a groan followed by a wheezing sound. As if he'd given a verbal order, the entire group moved as one towards the body, or person, that had fallen virtually on top of them.

As he approached his breath caught in his throat. No matter how matted with dirt and blood, how singed or how damaged, there was no mistaking that hair. Fire and brimstone. The nearly unreadable N7 logo on the mangled chest plate sealed it with unquestionable finality.

"... Shepard?" he whispered, disbelievingly, even as the medics in the team began working on the commander, calling out to her but receiving no response.

"What, really?" Veria asked, looking up at him from her crouched positioned next to Shepards head where she was helping to stabilize the neck with a makeshift brace.

Bailey simply nodded, pointed at all of them "She doesn't die, you hear me?" and stalked off. Tapping his headset to get a signal.

"This is Commander Armando Bailey, C-SEC. I need to speak with fleet command, immediately." he called frantically into his headset.

"FLEETCOM _SSV Hastings_ receiving, state the purpose of your transmission." a bored sounding operator responded after a few seconds, slightly garbled by interferance.

"We have Commander Shepard." he nearly shouted "And she's alive, but not for long, we need and evac shuttle ASAP."

The operator was silent for several minutes,though he thought he could hear chatter and even shouting in the background. "Hold for Fleet Admiral Hackett." came the response at last, the operators voice caught slightly.

Not even half a minute later, the gravely, familiar voice of Admiral Stephen Hackett came through the other end "Commander. What is your location?"

Breathing a sigh of relief, Bailey tapped the send button and relayed his coordinates.

Exactly 38 minutes later, an Alliance Kodiak set down outside a London hospital that had, miraculously enough, been spared much of the destruction, carrying a patient that was very much on the knife's edge. Trailing after the stretcher and medical team with determined steps and a grim, pained expression walked the man who was, for all intents and purposes, the current leader of the Human species, Stephen Hackett.


	2. Chapter 2

**Wow, ok, so I wasn't expecting quite so much feedback, quite a few favs, even some reviews. Thank you so much** **.** **Mass Effect and canonical characters are the property of EA Games and BioWare.** **  
/Elin**

* * *

Tali tapped the final command to initiate the power transfer and stood back, watching the progress of the indicator bars. With one arm tucked firmly into a sling, she'd been relegated to station duty. She had had to fight for that much as well, but she suspected that Dr. Chakwas understood that she needed something, anything, to occupy her mind.

 _ **'I need you to make it out of here alive...'**_

She hadn't slept since waking up, and in the hours since communications had been reestablished with the fleet, substantial amount of her energy had been spent trying to locate Sarah's mother. With EDI apparently... dead, or 'unresponsive' as the more apt phrasing for an AI went, and the drive core knocked out, being unable to work mechanically had left her little to do but sift through information feeds and making tentative inquiries of her own. They'd never met, there hadn't been time for such normalcies as 'meeting the parents', and She wasn't even sure if Sarah had mentioned their relationship, or her at all for that matter. The _SSV Orizoba_ , she'd managed to find out, had gone down fighting in the skies over Earth, valiantly covering the approach of the Crucible. The ships escape pods had been launched but much of the crew were still listed as missing in action. If that was due to the information being spotty or them never making it off the ship was still uncertain, but regardless Hannah Shepard remained one of these unknowns. Still, she felt the need to explain, to apologize for not doing more... for living, when Sarah didn't.

 ** _'_ _I can't stay behind!_ _'_**

Her lithe, three fingered hand closed into a tight fist trying to stem the tide of emotions roiling within. An alarm buzzed and her luminous eyes snapped up to the interface, a red error flash for a moment, followed by the systems log popping up.

 _INITIATE REACTION SEQUENCE: ... [OK]  
_

 _REACTION CHAMBER INTEGRITY CHECK: ... [OK]_

 _INITIATE CONTAINMENT FIELD: ... []_

...

ERROR: FAILURE OF PRIMARY CONTAINMENT GRID

...

 _ERROR: FAILURE OF SECONDARY CONTAINMENT GRID, BACKUP SYSTEMS UNRESPONSIVE_

 _REACTION SEQUENCE ABORTED_

Tali stared at the readout for a moment.

 _ **'**_ _ **Don't leave me behind...**_ _ **'**_

In silent fury, she smashed her fist against the haptic pad, and with a _crack,_ it winked out. Breathing heavily and with sloped, shaking shoulders she tried to regain control as she heard a soft shuffling behind her.

"... Tali?" Gabby Daniels soft voice came out almost pleading.

Before the other woman could put her hand on Talis shoulder, she shrugged roughly and extricated herself towards the door, muttering a barely audible "I'll be right back." to Gabby as she went. She didn't want to act this way, she felt silly and selfish. But she couldn't help it, her mind was screaming and her body was itching for some kind of _action_ to be taken, only she didn't know what that would be. The wait for the lift was excruciating as she paced to and fro in front of the hatch, the ride up even more so. When she finally made it to the crew deck, she bolted through, barely dodging crewmates without even registering who they were. When she made it to the observation lounge, she was barely holding together.

 _ **'... I have a home..."**_

With a scream that tapered off into a mournful wail, she threw the nearest object she could reach, then another, and another. She barely registered the sound of the hatch opening and closing, but as she turned around to throw another object; a book, she vaguely realized, she came face to face with Liara. Chest and shoulders heaving and with shaking hands, Tali stared at one of her oldest friends. Then, as quickly as it had seized her, the rage ebbed, replaced by a crushing emptiness such as she had never felt. Not after the death of her mother, not at the death of her father. For the first time in her life, Tali felt utterly alone. The book clattered to the floor, and she finally broke down. A heart wrenching sob escaped her and she felt her legs give. Liara closed the distance in a single stride, crushing the younger women to her chest.

"It's not fair!" Tali sobbed brokenly into Liaras shoulder "It's not fair..."

"I know..." Liara said soothingly.

Liara sat with her friend for hours, and eventually the sobs, just like the anger, ebbed, and Tali slept for the first time in days.

* * *

"Tali..."

The voice felt far away, a hand was gently rocking her leg and slowly Tali pulled herself out of her deep slumber. Groggily, she blinked and sat up. Liara was there, sitting next to her on the sofa with a comforting hand resting on her knee.

"Hi." Tali said, her voice a bit raspy from disuse "What time is it?"

Liara smiled, a slightly mischievous gleam in her eye that reminded Tali if 'the good old days', before Alchera. "18.00 hours, but it's the next day, you've been decked out in here for 18 hours."

Tali blinked owlishly at her, then let out a queit, sad chuckle "Guess I needed it, huh?"

"Yes," Liara said with a smile "and now you need these."

A pouch of sterilized water and a nutrient paste tube was placed on the table in front of her.

"I'm not-" she began but was promptly cut off.

"You. Need. It." Liara insisted, enunciating each syllable and fixing her friend with a piercing gaze.

Sighing, but too tired still to argue, she set to work. The water was welcome, her throat was dry and she felt feverish, but the nutrient paste tasted like ashes in her mouth and she had to fight to get, and then keep it, down. It turned out that eating mechanically means you can do it quite quickly even when having zero desire to do so and fighting back nausea, and she polished both items off in 15 minutes.

"Good!" Liara said, clapping her hands together "Now that I managed to get you fed, we can get to why I woke you up."

Tali turned her head and, despite her somber mood, Liara could spot the telltale Quarian curiosity sparkle behind the visor. Not as brightly as usual, not as clear, but it was there nontheless.

"We've received a transmission from Earth, apparently Admiral Hackett wishes to speak with us. Well, you, specifically, apparently. Ash is already waiting in the Com Room.

Talis gut wrenched again, and she wrought her hands together nervously. "Is it... did they say-"

Liara put a comforting hand on her arm "No, they didn't say. But whatever has happened has happened already, hearing it won't change anything." she said gently.

Drawing a shuddering breath, Tali nodded. "Ok..." she said "Ok."

* * *

Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams had never sought rank, or command. Having fought against the stigma of her family name for most of her career, she'd resigned herself to being a grunt for the duration of her service before mustering out. It was after all, as her father always put it, the William's Curse. Getting screwed for doing the right thing and making the call no one else wanted to make.

So it was because of this she was still uneasy about her current status. Not only had she achieved officers status, she was currently acting CO of an Alliance warship. _'Hell,_ ' she mused to herself _'and I'm not even bloody Navy'._ She'd had laughed if the reasons for her appointment weren't so damn tragic and hearth wrenching. Sarah Shepard, a woman she greatly respected and considered a dear friend; a dear friend she felt that she'd wronged terribly on more than one occasion, was gone. Presumed dead, as was wont to happen when the space station one's on halfway blows up. They'd 'spoken' about it, briefly, but there hadn't been time, or it hadn't felt important at the time, to really say what needed to be said. And Ashley regretted it now, she'd never truly apologized, Shepard being Shepard had just... offered forgiveness without being asked. The woman was all about second, or even fifth chances.

And then there was the issue of Tali. That was another thing she'd never expected. In her youth she'd been, not racist, she'd never agree to that definition even now, but 'understandably cautious' around aliens. Especially Turians, a people she blamed, subconsciously anyway, for the aforementioned family curse. It was therefore with some consternation she'd come to realize that her prejudices against other races, Quarians in particular, were more or less carbon copied of the prejudices often espoused by those very same Turians. And even though she'd never expected it, she now counted both a Turian, an Asari and a Quarian as some of her closest friends.

"You think this is about Shepard?" she asked after a long, but not uncomfortable silence, her eyes never leaving the com panel.

"Mm," Garrus's flanged voice hummed next to her "Can't think of what else it would be. Sure, Tali's an Admiral but we know for a fact that most of the Admiralty Board survived the battle, so no need to drag her out of bed if it wasn't personal." He paused, glancing down at her "How _would_ Hackett know about them anyway?"

Ashley chuckled "Shepard listed her as emergency medical contact in her file, alongside her Mom. Not exactly a sign that says 'hey, we're shacking up' but as good as."

Garrus chuckled as well "Not that they needed a sign mind you, that mission on the Geth dreadnought was excruciating. _'Well, I care deeply about the Quarian people',_ please." they shared a small laugh at that, but quickly grew somber again "You think she's alive?"

"I'm hoping..." she replied, trailing off "She tricked the piper once, why not again?"

They heard footsteps behind them, and Tali shuffled into the alcove, followed shortly by Liara. Ashley reached out and touched Talis arm in comfort briefly, then turned around and tapped the com panel.

"FLEETCOM." came the by now practiced response moments later.

"LT Williams, acting CO _SSV Normandy,_ responding to a communications request by Fleet Admiral Hackett."

"Stand by..."

Ashley turned around to face her friends and crew mates and rolled her eyes in silence.

"Hold for Fleet Command."

The communicator buzzed and the holo shifted, and Admiral Stephen Hackett materialised shortly after.

" Lieutenant Commander." he greeted, returning Ashley's crisp salute "Officer Vakarian, Dr. T'Soni, Admiral Zorah." he greeted the three present not in his chain of command with a respectful nod each. While not Alliance personel, he felt... somewhat responsible for them, given their continued service aboard the _Normandy_.

"I'll get directly to the point; we've... recovered, Commander Shepard." he said, grimacing slightly as he finished.

They all heard a sharp intake of air from Tali as the young woman swayed slightly in place.

"Sir... when you say 'recovered'-" Ashley began

"She's alive." Hackett cut her off, and paused as Tali sagged against Liaras shoulder and let out a muffled sob she'd been unable to contain fully. "Alive but... in a bad way." The silence in the alcove was oppressive as they waited for the Admiral to continue.

"From what the Doctors here tell me that she's even alive is nothing short of a miracle, the fact that she was apparently moving at first when they found her on the Citadel is nothing short of a medical impossibility." He went on "A combination of sheer stubbornness and the cybernetic implants, or at least the latter according to the doctor here. We're attempting to track down Operative Lawson as we speak, given her expertise on Shepard's particular implants, but communication is a bit ad-hoc at the moment as you've no doubt noticed."

"Sir, can you give us a location?" Ashley asked "We expect to have the _Normandy_ underway within the next few hours, I request permission to take the ship to Earth we... the crew, needs to be there, sir." she finished, feeling awkward making such a personal and heartfelt request of a superior officer.

"Granted, Lieutenant Commander." Hacket replied instantly, with a nod, surprising her "She's being treated at what's left of a London hospital at the moment, but we've got a hospital ship, the _Nightingale,_ on her way into the system. Likely Shepard will be moved there when it reaches orbit, assuming she's stable enough."

"Understood sir, we'll be there."

Hackett nodded "Get your ship moving, LT, we'll speak again when you arrive. Hackett out." the image of the grizzled old veteran flicker out.

Tali finally let her relieved yet anguished sobs out, and clung to Liara who stroked her back and kept repeating "It's going to be alright, she's alive." Over and over.

Even Garrus, normally so stoic, braced himself against the railing, mandibles fluttering with, to his compatriots, unreadable emotion.

"Right" Ashely said after taking a moment to collect herself "We've a lot of work to do, so lets snap to it and go get Shepard. I'm sick of command anyway." this elicited a wet, relieved chuckle from Tali.

Stepping to the side and tapping the intercom "Joker! How we looking?"

A brief pause the acerbic response came "Gabby and Ken tell me we're about ready to attempt another energy transfer LT. They _say_ the containment systems should be up to snuff, but, well, they said that yesterday too, so, ya'know..."

"Good. And the... computer systems?" she prodded.

At this allusion to the unresponsive EDI, the Flight Lieutenant quieted "No change" he replied after a moment, voice utterly devoid of feeling.

"Understood, be on standby for engine startup procedures."

"Aye aye, LT." he replied, and the connection broke.

"Right!" she said, turning to the others in the room "Tali, I'd understand if you're not up to it, but Donnely and Daniels could use you down in engineering."

Sniffling, Tali let go of Liara and stood straight "Of course, yes, sorr-" she said, flustered

"You've nothing to be sorry about" Ashely cut her off, holding her hand up in a stalling motion. "I just figured you're probably more anxious than most of us." she said with a wink.

"I'll go make sure the weapons systems won't cause power fluctuations" Garrus added, and then promptly walked out.

"Bya all means" Ashley said to his retreating back in poorly hidden amusement.

* * *

A few hours later, with all available systems primed and ready, the engineering crew of the _Normandy_ were all holding their collective breath. With Tali back to something at least resembling her old self, the work had proceeded at a far quicker pace than the previous day, even with one arm in a sling she really was a mechanical mastermind, Ken remarked.

"Initiating power transfer!" she called to Gabby over the din of the spluttering power generator perched precariously on the floor next to the drive core, who stood by one of the panels opposite. "Monitor the containment field integrity in real time and shore it up as needed."

"Got it!" Gabby called back.

They, or rather Tali, had pulled an old Migrant Fleet trick out of her proverbial hat and rigged an external, extra containment field field generator out of spare parts and a portable power generator. It was an old trick born of desperation, a last ditch backup used in a fleet where emergency shutdowns in the events of containment failures didn't always work. And a fleet where there may very well be a nursery or a hospital right next to said jury rigged power core.

She tapped the final commands and stared intently at the real time log feedback.

 _INITIATE REACTION SEQUENCE: ... [OK]  
_

 _REACTION CHAMBER INTEGRITY CHECK: ... [OK]_

 _INITIATE CONTAINMENT FIELD: ... []_

...

 _PROCESSING_

...

 _INITIATE CONTAINMENT FIELD: ... [OK]  
_

 _CHECKING SECONDARY CONTAINMENT GRID: ... [OK]_

 _FIRING IGNITION COILS: ... [OK]_

The engine room hummed and lit up in a blue shimmer as the drive core came to life once more. Ken and Gabby cheered behind her and Engineer Adams clapped her on her good shoulder with a laugh.

"Well then, not exactly to specs but there you go."

"You humans and your 'specs'" she teased back.

Chucking, he slapped the intercom. "Adams to CIC!"

"Go ahead Adams" Ashley responded promptly.

"Drive core is up and running thanks to our resident Quarian genius, LT" he replied, making Tali blush a little behind her visor "Wouldn't recommend taking her above 30% though. Core's not exactly stable, but we've got main power."

"Roger that, engine room. Monitor the situation continuously and prepare to get underway, CIC out."

Tali wrung her hands nervously. She was eager to get underway, certainly. In fact, in all her life, she didn't think she'd ever hated the vastness of space, the distances it meant, more than she did in that very moment. But she was also nervous about what she might find once they got back to Earth. The thought of Sarah, injured and maybe in pain... alone, it tore at her from the inside. Still, she was alive, which was more than she'd dare to hope. It had seemed so final, but yet again Sarah had done the impossible, come back from the brink or even from beyond.

Walking out of engineering, she wandered without any particular destination in mind, so she was surprised when she found herself on the top deck, staring at the hatch to the captain's courters. She hadn't been back here since the night before the assault on Cerberus headquarters, the last time she and Sarah had truly been together. Entering the room, she took a deep breath. Even through all her filters and gadgets, it still smelled like her, the bulkheads veritably radiated her presence, from the collection of model ships; something that Tali found infinitely cute to the point that she'd never even been able to give Sarah so much as a friendly ribbing about this slightly age-inappropriate hobby, the the decidedly un-military regulation mess that was her footlocker. The Quarians had Rannoch back, but for Tali, this was home, wherever Sarah was, she had a home. She only hoped they would share it again.


End file.
